It looks the part

The recipe:
The reason I held back from giving it was that he told me ingredients and procedure, not quantities, so I wanted to give it a trial run to let me guage what to give as the quantities.

BASE SAUCE
10 large onions, roughly chopped.
3 large tablespoons of cumin seeds very lightly toasted
about 1 litre of water.

Bring it all to the boil and then simmer for about 45 mins. Then, puree to a very fine soupy texture. Add 0.5 liters of sunflower oil and return to a low heat for about an hour until the onion particles have lost most of their water content and have browned slightly in the frying process. TURN OFF THE HEAT and immediately add 2 teaspoons of turmeric and 1.5 teaspoons of salt and 0.5 teaspoons of chilli powder. Then leave to cool.

THE CURRY (for 2 - 3 people)

Get some sunflower oil hot in a pan and add 2 tablespoons of homemade (grind in a pestle and mortar) ginger and garlic paste made in a 1:1 ratio by volume. Stir this constantly until it lightly browns - nothing extreme. Now add 2 - 3 tablespoons of tomato puree (the typical double concentrate one) and 2 teaspoons more of ground cumin this time. Stir for about 1 minute. Put in 1/2 a green pepper chopped quite small and half and onion chopped quite small.  Then laddle in about 0.3 litres of the base sauce after stirring it to incorporate the oil. Once this reaches a good rolling boil/fry chuck in 3 chichen breasts previously grilled tikka stylie (as per some other reliable recipe from here). Turn the heat to medium and give it a further 5 minutes and you're done. With the heat off chuck in a good helping of chopped fresh coriander and there you go.

I have to say there's nothing much different there as far as the base is concerned. And I agree there seems to be something missing.

I made the Bruce Edwards base at the weekend and tried another experimental curry yesterday.

4 tbsp sunflower oil heated and then fry off a medium Spanish onion finely chopped until golden (not crispy). Add a few slices of chopped red and green pepper, then add 1 tbsp of garlic/ginger paste (50:50 like yours) and fry off until it begins to catch (a minute or two). Then add one large chicken breast cut into suitable pieces.

Fry with stirring until the chicken is picking up colour, then add 1 tbsp of the Bruce Edwards spice mix (modified with mustard seeds also included), 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp chilli, 2 tsp ground Methi leaves (I like Methi) and fry some more (I added about another 1-2 tbsp oil at this stage as it got a bit too dry (it was an experiment, remember, and I also misread/didn't read my notes and it should have been 1 tsp of the spice mix).

Then add one portion (200g) of the curry base. Cook on low heat until chicken done, then add another tbsp garlic/ginger and plenty of coriander.

I swear that the house smelled just like a curry shop - and I mean JUST like it - and the curry tasted perfect. The gravy gave it a full flavour (miles better than the Khris Dillon one which just has onions in it). I'm sure the fried garlic/ginger is key to the smell, and the quality of the gravy gives the depth I was always missing (plus it definitely improves the smell - I have a thing about that smell ).

As far as I'm concerned that's it (just about). You get a curry that easily falls within the range of those I've tasted from may various takeaways

Need to experiment with pre-cooking the chicken next - I've never been convinced about that as it is juicier when it is cooked from scratch.

Doh,

I just found frequently asked questions by Curry King, sorry it ionly proves how mad I am with the excitement of the site.

Panpot

Hi again,

I wondered if this little point can help in the 'quest' Last year I watched Rick Stein on his Food Heroes show cook a lamb and spinach curry after visiting an Indian cafe somewhere in England. You probably all seen it too and it is insignificant but the thing that stood out and indeed Stein drew attention to it was that the chef didnt brown the lamb he just added it to cook in the sauce.

I had a go and it was very good but have since lost the recipy maybe this will add something or someone can give a comment on it.

The marinade is calling

Panpot